Mass Failure
by cvibesdoho
Summary: Are you tired of SIs who all save Tali, help Shepard, and then woo the quarian? Then this is just another of them. A PARODY! DO NOT TAKE SERIOUSLY!
1. Unexpected Visitor

_A/N: THIS IS A PARODY! IT IS REALLY, REALLY SILLY! IF YOU WANT SOMETHING SESRIOUS READ MY OTHER STORIES!_

Why'd it have to be the illness again? I, known as Cecare Trophe Shepard to others rose from my bed. Being named Shepard was a coincidence. I was not related in any way to the famous videogame character, John Shepard.

Most people called me Catastrophe, or simply C. because shouting: "Wake up! Come to breakfast, you got to get to school soon, Cecare Trophe!" was kinda slow and hard to say correctly, not that Catastrophe would be any better. Actually, it was even harder to spell, but most of my classmates had forgotten my real name a few years ago.

I had a temperature and a headache and no clue where'd the temperature came from, but my headache was certainly from playing Mass Effect too much. I just could not leave my first femShep. and sixth overrall Shepard staring into the galaxy map, waiting for the suicide mission. No, I just could not stop playing at that point. In fact I played trough three loyalty-missions, the derelict reaper and the Collector base that night.

Not having anyone else in the house at the time, I decided to fire my old tabletop computer up. Even though it had just two gigs of ram and as much processing power it worked nicely. From his desktop I clicked the Mass Effect one icon. The character, a very ugly defShep was on his way to Ilos. I wanted this playthrough to go as bad as possible. The video-game Shepard drew his assault rifle and walked towards the door behind the landing zone of the Mako, when someone knocked on the door.

The real door, not the one on Ilos. The ugly-named Shepard AKA me stood up and walked towards the door and opened it. I was caught in shock: there was a geth, specifically Legion there.

"Query: may this platform enter this building?" came from his speaker. I nodded in acceptance. I was still too surprised to say anything.

I decided to make sure it was Legion by questioning it the same way the game-Shepard did: "What is the platform in front of me called?"

"Geth."

"I mean you, specifically."

"We are geth. All geth, there is no individual. There are currently 1,183 programs running within this platform."

"Maybe I could call you Legion?"

"Yes," came the reply. The geth continued in its monotone: "We know of the game called Mass Effect. We also know that Shepard-Commander is dead. There is a problem. There is no Cerberus, unlike your game. Shepard-Commander can not be repaired. We have a last resort: you must come and take Shepard-Commanders place. We have reached consensus: we will take you to our Galaxy. Have you reached consensus?" It was hard for me to take in at first, but (I smiled at the thought) would meet Garrus, Tali and Joker! Woohoo! That sounded great.

"I'll come," I merely said and immediately got pushed off my feet by a bright flash of light.

I woke up in a place I least expected to. It was Omega, right behind Garrus who for some reason had Tali with him. They were apparantly "doing Garrus's recruitment mission".

I shouted: "Hey, don't shoot, I'm Shepard!". Garrus turned around at lightspeed followed close by Tali.

"Prove it!" sayed Tali. I told her about saving her from assassins in the dark alley and Garrus got to know about his past, his never-ending calibrations and well - his story of "reach" and "flexibility".

It wasn't enough for Tali though: "Shepards dead, you bosh'tet and I do not believe you. Still, we need to get out of here and I won't shoot if you promise to tell us the whole story after we're away from here" I agreed and asked Legion, who they had for some reason not yet noticed, about an omni-tool. I wanted to be an Infiltrator like Legion and Garrus.

Legion threw me the small omni-tool processor which was about the size of a phone battery. I put it into my pocket and… stopped. I did not know how to bring up the holodisplay of an omni-tool. I turned to Tali for help and thankfully she had calmed a bit. Apparently quarians had faster emotion processing than salarians. She showed me a button on the processor that brought the display up. I thanked her and brought my omni-tool up. Legion had thankfully equipped it with an overload program witch I put to good use on a man aiming at Tali with a sniper rifle. The overload burned the mercenary's heat sink and made it explode ripping half the mans face off with it. I felt bad. I had taken a human's life.

I just sat down in the corner and felt really bad about myself when i heard Garrus roar: "Shepard, get out of there, a gunship has found you and is going to test it's weapons on you if you do not get the h**l out of there now!" I jumped to my feet and ran for cover at the same time primeing my overload program. The gunship's miniguns opened fire. I could not believe the situation: I was unarmed, unarmored, unshielded and under heavy fire. The overload i had charged worked well making one of the gunships rotor-blades go slower than the others causing them to impact one another and destroy themselves. Mere seconds later the huge flying machine fell into the dephts of Omega.

There was a huge explosion behind me which was probaply from a missile originating from the gunship. It knocked me out.

I saw a cold, metallic light above me.

"Legion," I whispered. The infiltrator simply stared at me. "Is there something wrong?" I asked.

"Yes," came the reply.

"What is it then?"

"We managed to hack Aria T'Loak's credit chit and take thirty-million credits from her. We have spent twenty-five million credits already. We have bought a ship called "Tupari Addict". There is a problem. T'Loak has detected us. There are Blue Suns closing in on the docking area."

"Let's get out of here then! Why are we still standing here?"

"There is still a problem. Vakarian-Garrus and Creator-Tali'Zorah refused to enter the ship. They are outside the Addict. Blue Suns: 100 metres from docking bay."

"Come, we need to get them aboard the ship!" said I and started running towards the airlock, Legion close behind.

Garrus was taking cover behind a crate which was about to get shot to pieces by the heavy gunfire of the mercs.

"Garrus! YMIR incoming!"

To my surprise it was answered by a salarian: "On it. Not much time. Have to hurry. Executeing dangerous people." What was Mordin doing here?

I shouted: "Everyone to the ship! Mordin, Garrus, Tali! Double time GO!" I caught a mistrusting glance from Tali, but she understood that if she wanted to live she had to board the "Addict". A bit later the airlock closed and an angry Quarian entered and stood next to a Salarian and a Turian.

"Who's gonna drive?" I asked to which Legion repeated his "Yes." and sat into the pilot's chair.

"So, who are you?" asked Garrus. He added: "The young lady next to me has a shotgun, so in case you are not Shepard… Well you know it by yourself." I started talking and told them everything about my trip between parallel universes and Legion, my life in the "real world" and the game of Mass Effect."

Garrus and Tali watched me in disbelief, but Mordin started his ultra-talk: "If that true, this Geth, Legion able to travel between universes. Fascinating. Very interesting. Still have a question. Am I real or virtual?"

_A/N: I know it´s a bit short but I´ll update quite often so it shouldn´t be a problem. Please answer if the crew should catch Joker or go somewhere else?_


	2. Aboard the Tupari Addict

_A/N: the update went a bit faster than I thought, but because chapter two is about half the length of Chapter 1 the new one will propably come tomorrow. Could you please review, and if not that, then at least tell how do you write the word "propably", because I never can be sure I write that one right. Happy reading! _

"So, what you wanted to say is that we are simply videogame characters and the reapers also don't exist?" began Tali, sitting in the mess hall of the "Addict". "And you are not the same Shepard we had on the ship two years, but you made his decisions?"

I replied: "It seems that my last playthrough of "Mass Effect" is recorded as the current Shepard. Oh why'd I have to make him kill Wrex then Ashley and finally scare Liara off when she started talking about "Embracing Eternity"?"

"Now I know why Liara was so angry before Ilos and why she got off the Normandy before it blew!" Garrus added.  
I went to my quarters and decided to get some sleep. I had commanded Legion to pilot the ship to Citadel, where Joker was hanging out. Legion was a good pilot, but he lacked the funny side. As I laid down on the bed I heard a beep from the door and it opened showing Tali in a very nervous stance.

She came in wringing her hands: "I wanted to apologize for my earlier behavior. Anyway if we have time we could stop at the Citadel and get a better engine and some weapons, as in case of a Collector attack we would not last for a second."

I asked Tali about Freedom's Progress. I learned that the results had been catastrophic without Shepard and his team and all the quarians execpt Tali had died and Tali had scanned the omni-tool of the late Veetor'Nara and found out about the Collectors. She then made her way to Omega and contacted Garrus. Garrus happily accepted her into his team and when Sidonis betrayed them they were the only survivors. She still didn't trust Legion though as she was grown up along with stories of the horrible geth and all the bad things they did. She apologized again and went to engineering.

I opened my private terminal and saw a message from Joker who Garrus had apparently informed about my location and all the stories about my origins. I really hoped that he would not accidentally tip off any people about Shepards 'revival' as that would send not only Blue Suns, but also C-Sec and the Alliance on my tail. I did not want THAT for sure. I also ordered a hotel room on Zakera ward alongside a smuggled Spectre XII series Infiltrator kit consisting of a sniper-rifle, submachine-and-heavy pistol-in one, a better omni-tool and some maps of Estonia's current cities simply out of curiosity. I still had about 3,5 million credits left and if I wanted I could always ask Legion to hack Aria's credit account some more, but I didn't want to risk a full-scale war with the Terminus systems so I shut my private terminal and laid down onto my bed closing my eyes. I guessed I WAS becoming a bit like Shepard, after all.

_There was a reaper, possibly Harbinger in front of me talking about being "the vanguard of my destiny" and stuff so I just told him to tell it to somebody who cares. Reacting to that the reaper changed into Mordin's, Tali's and Garruse's dead bodies ripped to shreds. Suddenly Garrus changed into Saren going on about "the unevitable death" which I responded to as I did to Harbinger's speech. The picture changed again, now into myself being slammed onto a dragons tooth and changed into a husk. I heard a female voice shouting "Shepard, Shepard you gotta wake up, C-Sec is coming for a random investigation and they'll be here in five minutes!"_

_A/N: Those who want to know why I ordered maps of Estonia can have an answer: it´s because I **LIVE** in Estonia and thats why I´d love to see it in the future. See you next time!_


	3. Citadel

_A/N: This took a litte longer than I expected, but I´ll continue in a faster pace from now on. Can´t make any promises though. What´s with all the reviews? That´s right! There are no reviews for almost a week! Is it so hard to write a short text?_

"C-Sec, this is a random investigation! Every stolen or forbidden object will be taken away and a fine will be made!" shouted an officer, running into the ship. If there was one thing he wasn't expecting to find, it was a lone geth platform standing peacefully next to a human, quarian, turian and a salarian. "Identification!" came from the officer after a long pause of shock. He drawed his omni-tool and proceed to scan the people aboard the ship, deciding to leave the geth the last. He did not reach him, because there was a problem, earlier with me. "Sir, you seem not to be in our databases. Are you related to cmdr. Shepard or something? Your bio-scan shows that you must be related to him by one degree!"

"That's because I am commander Shepard" I responded calmly.

"That's not possible! Shepard died two years ago."

"Do I look dead to you?" I asked.

"No, definitely not. I'll let you inside and inform executor Pallin." With that he left and drove away in his shuttle. Now I had to get to the Council. I thankfully had not let them die because I accidentally had missed the button that made the council die.

"Don't worry, I won't let'em harass you for being a quarian," I told Tali to which she responded by telling me how I actually reminded her of his "old commander" I never liked the human squadmates in "Mass Effect" so I screamed at them all the time expect Joker who I let be in peace because I kinda liked him. This meant that if I ever got to Horizon in time Kaidan was gonna be really angry. He was a better character than Jacob though. Even if he existed in this variation of ME he'd pro(aahhh! This nasty word again!)pably was some kind of a beggar on the streets of Earth.

I exited the shuttle of the "Addict", humorously called "Paragade", another soda drink in the ME universe. The idiotic lady working at the reception-desk thingy of the Citadel did not even aknowledge the fact that there was Legion next to me and let us pass. I was stopped again by a turian next to the bio-scanner. Thankfully, he let me pass after a moment. Neither did the human captain at his table stop me. It had to do something with Pallin.

"Where's our hotel room?" I asked.

Legion replied: "At 600-blocks, third building on the right, twenty-third floor." I nodded and walked towards the taxi stand. I hailed one and after stepping into the cab let my thoughts overwhelm myself. I was in some kind of a trance until Garrus informed me of our arrival. It seemed strange that Mordin hadn't say'd a word in a long time, but I caught him playing "Galaxy of Fantasy". I thought about getting myself a copy if it some day.

Stepping into the hotel I was immediately greeted by a worried receptionist. She was very nervous because apparently there were only three beds, but five of us.

"This platform will not need rest and will attempt to reach consensus wether to play Call of Honor or Medal of Duty in the meantime." I sighed. Typical heavy-gamer response I would expect from Legion. Good thing that "the Lair of the Shadow Broker" DLC came out before I got thrown here, otherwise I'd be pretty surprised at Legion. That still left the missing bed problem. I saw a smile start to form on Garrus's face.

"You two can be together, right?" he said chuckling and pointing to me and Tali. At first I disliked the idea, but hey, I romanced Tali three times out of five with the exeptions being having no romance interest and being a female Shepard. Although (AAAAAHHHHH! How do you write this word!) I did not like to admit it, I was being happy about Garrus´s suggestion.


	4. Blasto the Jellyfish

_A/N: That took longer than I thought, but now we have even more crew. Come on and review already!_

I woke up seeing everyone but me sleeping. Even Mordin was sleeping now. I could've sworn that I saw some orange omni-tool light coming from under his blanket till three o'clock in the morning. This "Galaxy of Fantasy" must be a real good game if people play it so much.

I rose from my bed and checked the package-shaft. There were three sniper rifles, a shotgun, five heavy pistols and a SMG. There were also brand new omni-tool's there. I took myself an omni-tool, a shining and fresh-looking sniper rifle along with a Heavy Pistol. I invited Legion to come and without waking the others we went towards the rebuilt council tower. It wasn't as pretty as it used to be with big holes in it, but it was still a magnificient sight. I stepped quickly towards the elevator and "enjoyed" the muzak in there. Legion seemed to like the music though, because he danced "the Robot" all the time.

I finally stepped out of the elevator and headed towards the council's stands. There were too many stairs there in my opinion. I also failed to get the point of a cherry three there. But it wasn't mine to decide so I simply climbed up the stairs and joined Legion, who apparently had better muscles in his legs than… a Human spectre who appeared out of nowhere two days ago. We continued towards the platform where you had to stand to speak to the council. I was a bit surprised that the Turian councilor was nowhere to be seen. After exchanging formalities, lying about surviving the crash and living with space-monkeys as well as being reinstated as a spectre I asked the Asari where the Turian was.

To my surprise instead the Salarian replied: "there was a… problem. We discovered that the Asari councilor is an Ardat-Yakshi too late as she had already melded with the other councilor."

"Thank you for keeping the secret," the Asari snapped back angrily leaving Anderson finally free to talk. He had interesting news: Joker hadn't left the Alliance, but he only flew in Combat-Sims or taught the other pilots tips and tricks about piloting. In fact, Joker was on the Citadel currently and after Anderson called him, Joker rolled out of seemingly nowhere. Yup, that's right. He was in a wheelchair now, but seemed to be pretty proficient with it.

He grinned and greeted me in his usual sarcastic manner. He then proceeded to ask me about Legion and I also told him the story of my origins, but before telling him I instinctively checked for bugs and recording devices. If there were any, they were propably deactivated by Legion earlier. We talked for hours with Joker and didn't stop until I saw a hanar floating towards the council. We watched the hanar for quite some time and noticed a weird thing: the talk they had going on reminded me of my Spectre auguration. Realization hit me a second later. It was Blasto! The First Hanar Spectre! Awesome! I thought he was just a movie in the ME universe. After ummm.… what gender are hanar? Okay HE. After floating down the podium he greeted me in his "this one" form. It took a lot of convincing, but I managed to get Blasto into my squad. This was going to be awesome, especially with "the Tupari Addict" killing reapers with it's Mega-Gardians. The problem was that we did not have any real weapons that could be depended on yet. To be honest, we only had a single mass accelerator cannon. No Gardians yet. It was enough for Garrus to calibrate, but it was fairly useless because of it's three minute charge time.

I was caught in my thoughts by Blasto, who suggested catching up with the others. As I hurried towards the taxy stand a huge krogan stopped me. "This is my cab, weaklings." he sayed in his deep voice.

This krogan reminded me of Wrex, but Wrex didn't have a sniper rifle usable as a light-machinegun on his back and neither did he have what looked like two huge and very sharp knives that couldve cut trough any armor.

To show that I weren't a total weakling I headbutted the krogan. He tried to answer with the same, but he probably wasn't ready for a geth smashing it's head against his back and most of all, he was not ready to be headbutted by a hanar shouting about being a Spectre. As we beat the krogan with our heads he started showing signs of tiredness. No krogan could last fifteen minutes of headbutting. "So you are not total weaklings," he said. "I've heard of you and Wrex. If you can respect me as you did with him, I will join you. There is a problem though: I am clanless, because I exited clan Weyrloc when they started joining Blood Pack. For that reason, I ain't respected by other krogan." He took in a big breath and suggested that we could go to the ship already. The same moment my omni-tool beeped. It was a message from Tali. She was in the ship and aside from Garrus's calibration guides they hadn't bought anything. I took the cab that was still patiently waiting for me like it had been programmed and entered the docking bay as the destination.

Joker was in shock seeing the "Addict" in its full glory. "She looks four times as big as the Normandy SR-1!" I replied: "She's 400 metres in length and 200 in heigth, plus everybody has got huge quarters and private terminals. Actually, Legion I do not believe that you bought it for 25 million creds. It looks like at least over 200 million credits to me." Legion talked uncharacteristically slowly: " We… lied about it. We did not buy this ship. We stole it from T'Loak. It was supposed to be her fleet's flagship. We hacked the controls and brought it to you, Shepard-Commander." I cursed quietly, realising that we propably had the whole Terminus chasing us. "Where to, Commander?" Joker asked. I replied: "To Illium. We got one volus to pick up. Calls himself a biotic god."

***In a galaxy far-far away, a long time ago...***

Naah, just kidding.

Aria sat on her chair in "The Afterlife" and was really angry. Everybody smart or lucky enough to get away from her did it. Her ship had been stolen for three days and noone had done anything. Unfortunately, "The Tupari Addict had been last seen entering Citadel space. But she was not going to let it go unanswered. She made sure that once her flagship had returned to Terminus, it wouldn't leave anytine soon.

_A/N: This was definitely a bit longer than usually, but it took me two days to write so... I still write about as fast. As you may have noticed the chapter headlines are some kinds of previews for the next chapter. Until next time!_


	5. Gaming Night

_A/N: This is the longest chapter yet! Great news, right? I hope it does not bother anyone that it seems that every chapter starts with me waking up. Oh yeah, it does not fit into the description, because I have reached the word limit, but It´ll be OCxTali eventually. And an AIxJoker as well, but... it´s a surprise. Hint: Portal. I won´t bother you anymore: you can now start reading!_

I opened my eyes and simply laid on my bed for a few minutes. It was a quite nice bed, as a matter of fact. Good thing that no-one had asked about my age yet. My videogame Shepard resembled myself, but he looked almost thirty in the game, while I was still seventeen. It was the first of August 2185, wich meant that I was going to have a birthday tomorrow. I fell asleep once more.

I woke up the second time that morning and was pushing off the blanket while I heard a beep from behind, indicating that the door had opened. I quickly pulled my blanket up again and realized that it was Tali.

She nervously started wringing her hands: "Ummm… Shepard! I'm sorry for not knocking. I did not see anything. I should leave."

"I insist on having you stay!" I ordered and Tali continued: "Why I came for, is that the whole squad is waiting for you to come to the bridge as we are nearing Nos Astra. How did you know about a biotic volus residing on Illium? It was that videogame, right?" I nodded and Tali turned around walking out of my quarters. I dressed up and headed for the bridge.

"Morning, Commander. I was just explaining the whole "Mass Effect" thing to Roke and Blasto. Blasto's really cool, he's so funny with his "this one" and stuff, but Roke's a bit insane. It looks like he wants to kill every reaper with his bare… what is it? Claws? It's just my opinion though, no need to go spreading it around." Joker cheerfully said, but was suddenly caught in shock by a voice behind him:

"This one would like to share your thoughts to test how Roke'll react. If This one were him, this one would shoot you with a shotgun." Joker quickly regained himself and replied sarcastically. The very same moment Roke arrived and well… Blasto decided to fill him in on Joker's thoughts and the results were not pleasant. They all started talking and I shouted out loud "Jesus Christ on a f*****g pikestaff! Shut up! We have a job to do!" Whoooops... Not my catchline. Art´s. They had played a videogame on the Normandy in Mass Vexations where Art was from. With Legion's intergalactic travel power it gave me a good idea: I asked Legion if he could by any chance go back to my home and get us my copy of Mass Effect 2 and my PC. It brought me to a disturbing thought: what had happened to my family? Did I just dissappear and now they were mourning me? I could not finish my thoughts, because Garrus interrupted pointing out a volus cargo ship under attack by pirates nearby. He informed me that his calibrations had decreased the cannons load time by a whole minute! That was great news. I gave the order to kill the pirates, bringing a smile to Garrus's face. Or as turians couldn't smile, their equivalent of it. He headed for the gun station.

The gigantic "Tupari Addict" was the size of a small dreadnought. That alone was enough to scare the pirates away, but Garrus decided to fire a shot from the mass acceleraror cannon causing one of the pirate ships to get sliced in half. We closed in on the trading vessel and opened communications.

A volus voice started speaking: "Fear me, lesser creatures SSSHHHH. I am a biotic god. SSSHHHHH. I was Niftu Cal before, but SSSSHHHHH no more. The Eclipse trained me to be perfect SSSSHHHH. I broke free and killed them all. The asari justicar helped a little, but SSSHHHH I was the main hero." So that's what happened without Shepard! Although (Thanks for helping me spell it, you know who I mean) I still thought that Samara had done most of the job, not a crazy volus. Nonetheless, I wanted him on my team. I turned on my comm and started the long and painful conversation, trying to get the "Biotic God" on our side.

It looked like I had fallen asleep on my sofa. I rembered walking back to my room and sitting down on the sofa after giving Joker orders to head for Earth to make contact with the Systems Alliance and get myself a larger crew. I stood up and saw, to my surprise, Tali messing with my terminal. What´s wrong with her? She spies on me? I greeted her, which made her jump up and say her "little bosh'tet" thing. I friendlily asked about what she's doing. She replied by… shortly put, all the stuff about configuring my terminal and a surprise to me. She finished by asking if I really had a birthday tomorrow. She seemed surprised at how young I was, because even she was older than I were. I replied positively to the birthday stuff and starting walking towards the mess hall, because I hadn't gotten anything to eat for what seemed ages.

I met up with Niftu in the mess hall. He was at the time inserting a food tube into his suit. I really hoped that they would not accidentally eat each others tubes, as Tali would survive because of her suit systems but Niftu would simply explode into a puddle of flesh and bones. It'd take ages to clean up. *Evil laughter*. I started eating what Aria had already supplied the ship with as Tali (she´s following me for sure) appeared behind me and told myself about a problem: there was no quarian food or even turian food in tubes. Only turian food that could only be eaten without a mask. I remembered that there were unistalled airlocks in every cabin's doors. she could install one and eat inside it until we'd get to Earth. I informed her of my plan and she happily ummm… jogged towards her quarters. There was a loud bang behind me.

Legion had come back from his trip to Earth: "Shepard-Commander, we took ten copies of Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 plus ten of the time's best computers."

"Legion, did you steal the computers?"

"Yes. There was exactly 5.3671 percent chance that we get caught. We believed that you would agree with our decicion."

"I don't agree, but as they are already here, we can start the gaming night."

"Where shall we put the computers?"

I asked Legion to install them to the comm room, as it had a lot of comfy seats and was large enough to fit us all in.

I met a very nervous Mordin: "No time, have to hurry. Explodes in five minutes. Still have to loot the chest. Nononono. Not vorcha. Hate vorcha. Taste my gun, vorcha." I informed Mordin that we're supposed to get a science lab soon so he can finally do some work. I also told him of the gaming night coming up. He seemed happy. I opened up my omni-tool and surfed in the extranet. I found some videos of Cmdr. Shepard and started watching.

It was a few hours later when I opened the comms of the ship and let everyone know that there's a lot of gaming coming up. I was the first to the comm room except for Legion, who had already started playing and was on Feros right now. I noticed that there were three games next to each computer. Legion told me, that they were Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 and surprisingly, Cod: Mw2. The ultra-geth informed me that he had brought this game to "have something organics call fun". Multiplayer! A few minutes later others poured in. Legion had installed a mind controller on Blasto's computer, because it'd be pretty hard to hit the right buttons if you are a hanar. Tali seemed fascinated at the 175-year old tech. She was the fastest (after myself and Legion, of course) to run the Mass Effect application, which showed her the blue BioWare logo. At the time she had finished her custom female Shepard, the others had just opened the main menu. Niftu was so short that there were many pillows under him. I sat down and started playing my Catastrophe Shepard, now in ME2. Legion had thankfully brought me my old computer from Earth. I had a lot of files I would rather not like to lose there. About an hour later Tali saved herself from the assassins and Garrus, Mordin, Joker and others were helping Garrus save and assault Chora's Den. Roke was extremely happy having Wrex on his crew. He was going to play renegade for sure. I was recruiting Mordin, who from time-to-time came to me to see himself. In real life, the vorcha's bioweapon was destroyed by Mordin and a couple of security mechs.

A few hours later it was time to play some Call Of Duty! Mordin was the fastest to open the mutiplayer screen this time. Legion was the host, as he had the lowest ping rate. I guess he achieved that by somehow installing the game onto himself and playing it via the monitor and thought controls. My level 34 character took his trusty FN FAL (pronounced: eFfiN FAiL) and a PP-2000 with him. I had Garrus, Mordin and Tali on my team. The other team was bigger and had Legion, who was known to be a famous sniper, but Garrus was as good. I took out the noob tube and fired it into the typical camping spot, but there were not anyone there and the shot missed. I switched back to my FAL and saw a character named "The great wind" running past me. I scored a perfect headshot. I heard laughing coming from real Roke and saw my character get knifed by another guy called "Twoknivesbetterthanoneknife". In my killcam I saw some dude called "TurianRenegade" snipe Roke, it was a one shot, one kill. Blasto's character, "ThefirstSpectre" used a Thumper to kill Tali, named "theQuarianEngineer43". It lasted for many hours, until everybody looked like they needed some sleep.

"Tomorrow, we'll get a full crew!" I cheered my crew and went to my quarters. It was going to be my birthday soon!


	6. Full Crew

_A/N: Another chapter incoming! This one is a bit short, but the next one will be longer again. For those who feel that Legion is out of character there is a simple explanation: this is in my thoughts Legion 2.0 not the 1.0 Legion in ME 2. That means that he´s not exactly the same Legion. R&R!_

I sat on one of the chairs near the cocpit. Unlike the Normandy, there were two chairs behind the helmsman's place. Garrus ocuppied the other chair. He had asked Tali to connect the PC Legion gave him to his omni-tool. It made him able to play Mass Effect all the time. In fact, he had played the game for the last three hours, straight.

I looked out of the window and saw the massive planet Earth slowly, almost lazily rotate around itself.

I opened comm systems and the docking officer for a place to dock: "This is Commander Shepard of the cruiser "Tupari Addict". Requesting permission to dock in priority dock one."

"Permission granted. Sending the coordinates to your omni-tool now."

Joker moved the cruiser softly towards the dock. It was amazing how Joker could adapt to a spaceship in two days. He had some real talent. As we slowed down to be attached to the connectors, the rest of the crew appeared behind us. Krogan weren't allowed on Earth without filling out a form where you had to state all the reasons for coming to Earth. For that reason I prepared to tell everyone that he was my maid. He… didn't take it well. After headbutting Shepard three times (making Tali very nervous) and later punching Shepard in the stomach (making Tali VERY nervous) he finally agreed. I did not fight back because we had beaten up the krogan pretty bad two days ago and I really wanted him down there.

We were greeted by a young, inexperienced serviceman. As this was a docking bay for very important human ships, he immidately started asking questions about my crew.

I replied sarcastically: "This krogan is my maid, the quarian cooks and tests food, the turian is here to make me look stylish, the volus to create ambient sounds and we decided to take the hanar to have a moving cover." The man pointed to Mordin and Legion with a puzzled look. I told about them, as well: "The salarian is here to make vorcha taste his gun" The man's eyes seemed to grow in size ten times. "and the geth is needed when I want to read old books at night. Geth work perfectly as desk lamps. They're a bit tall, though."

Legion monotonically informed me: "This platform is not available for experimentations." I grinned at the man to which he responded by running away from the strange group of people.

"Nice going, commander," Garrus complimented. I gestured at the others to move on and walked towards the door leading to a hated elevator.

We reached admiral Hackett's office nearly an hour after scaring the serviceman. I waved my hand at the door and our whole crew moved in.

He seemed rather annoyed: "I do not even have to look up to know that you brought a bunch of aliens with you. This is a private human docking bay, serviceman. Ge out of here with those people." I coughed once. And twice. And three times. I was about to start the fourth one when Hackett finally looked up.

"Shepard?" he asked in disbelief.

_A/N: This is now from Tali's POV. I'm terrible at writing conversations, so I'll instead show you about what Tali is thinking and doing while Shepard is talking with Hackett.  
_  
While her good friend and secret crush Shepard was having a talk with Hackett about the crew, Tali and Garrus along with Legion went to the nearest cab stand. They hailed a cab and took it to the nearest big city, New Bejing. The old one had been destroyed nearly one hundred and fifty years ago by a terrorist attack. Nearly a billion people had died that day, as the terrorists nukes bombed the hell out of everything within the range of two thousand kilometers. Tali caught herself thinking about Shepard again. She thought that if she'd try to show that she was attracted to the commander, Shepard would reject her and that would cause their friendship to break. If there were three things quarians could not survive without, friends would be among them. No quarian'd be able to run a ship alone or… Garrus turned his head towards her, seemingly waiting for an answer. "What? I'm sorry, I got caught in my thoughts," Tali quickly said when she realized that Garrus had indeed, been waiting for an answer. Garrus repeated his question about Shepard's birthday being today. Tali replied positively.

New Bejing was huge, no doubt in that. They stepped out and headed for the shopping district. A salarian greeted them, shouting about Galaxy of Fantasy being on sale for a low price. Even better, the sale extended to the game´s both expansions, "Uprising of the Geth" and the "Colony Abduction". Garrus flipped a credit chit onto the counter.

Tali walked to the "various tech" section. As Shepard was an infiltrator, the class with a mixture of combat and tech powers, she had decided that he´d like a nice combat drone. As she wasn´t terribly rich, the quarian engineer invited Legion to the store. The lone geth payed for the purchase and followed Tali who was already heading towards the shopping centre´s... centre. Garrus was supposed to meet them there and Tali wanted to modify the combat drone a bit. Thinking about Shepard´s pet in the game, she fiddled with her omni-tool and made the drone resemble a hamster. A hamster shooting electricity from it´s mouth.


	7. GLADDY

_A/N: Sorry, no husks yet. It would seem plain strange to visit the collector ship right now. Happy reading!_

I was back on my ship checking how my crew wroked. It was a bit strange that some important people that would be from Cerberus were still in the Alliance. For example Ken, Gabby, Kelly, Chakwas and the infamous mess sergeant were now on my ship. It seemed unusual that Tali, Garrus and Legion had went to Earth and hadn't returned yet.

Dr Chakwas had embedded my omni-tool into my hand so I would not have to reach into my pocket to open it, what I just did. Instead of Cerberus, there was a pro-turian organization "Spartan". There had been strange news: Saren Arterius had been revived by Spartan. That reminded me of myself in ME2 a bit. If Saren was recruitable in this variation of ME, I'd DEFINITELY want him on my squad.

The el- did I mention that I took the elevator to my room? -evator had finally arrived and I walked up to my table, sitting onto my chair as I got to the desk. I opened up my customized (thanks to Tali) private terminal which glowed blue and opened the extranet browser, called "Extranet Explorer 45". Private terminals were much more comfortable than omni-tools.

Unlike 2010's smartphones, an omni-tool and a private terminal had synched desktops that meant you could continue everything you were doing not having to open all the programs from all over. I bought the Mega-super-hyper-maxi-extra-professional version of overload. Most of the people thought that a first level overload was extremely weak were wrong: they simply did not bother to aim 'em. An unaimed overload was weak, true, but in the right hands (mine) it could take out a soldier and gunship with ease. I also bought some custom armor colours. I then started browsing the news site, "Galactic News from all over the place". It was a long headline and because people did not trust it very much it had an extended title among people wich added "mixed up and shuffled twenty-two times". I started reading the first article I saw.

There was a click from the door and it opened. Birthday presents! Yay!

Garrus greeted me with a warm hug and handed me the "Galaxy of Fantasy Mega Pack".

Legion stepped forward: "This platform has cooperated with creator Tali'Zorah and produced an AI that is not geth. Consult your nearest creator for details. In case of malfunction, restart the drone five times." we shaked hands (it is propably the only gesture of friendship for the Geth). Tali came towards me and hugged me as well, though a bit longer than I expected. She said that I should check my omni-tool for a gift. There was a new icon visible and upon touching it an orange ball appeared with a hamster in the middle. Combat drone!

It began speaking with a voice that resembled EDI's, although it reminded me of an AI from a video game: "Hello, again and welcome to the Aperture Science test protocol. Please proceed to the portal. Please be careful: under no circumstances should you.. bsswht! Por favor pardon panajama muchas grazias. Stand back. The portal will open in three, two, one."

Ummmm, Legion had took Glados from the portal universe and put it on my omni tool. Awesome. Not! Hehehehe.

The AI continued it's monologue: "Cake will be received upon completing all test chambers. We are sorry to inform you that this next test chamber is, unfortunately, impossible. Aperture Science Enrichment Center apologises for the inconvenience. I decided to remind it that we are no longer fighting Black Mesa, but the reapers. The drone faded for a moment and reappeared.

"IiiiiiiiiiuyWeeeee are pleased that you made it through the test and the long-awaited cake will be given on planet Earth." Tali told me that Legion had expected the psychopatic AI to behave like this and had written a program to make it friendlier.

It still quoted Portal too much, though.

"Glados told me that cake is on planet Earth. Did you really buy cake? I mean, I read on the extranet that the tradition had died out in the end of 21st century!" Garrus informed me that they had indeed bought cake and the cake was.. surprise-surprise! Near my hometown! Yay!

Tali said: "We thought about a night in the forest next to a bonfire. Plus, not any forest, but a forest you surely visited back in '10. I thanked them a lot and we walked all together to the elevator wich took us to the cargo bay. The Paragade flew away from the Addict only minutes later.

We had set up a camp in the middle of the forest. There was a bonfire in the middle and a few tents surrounding it. It was maybe eleven o'clock in the night. Garrus stood up and told that he's real sleepy. The maniacal calibrater stood up and entered his tent. Tali also went to sleep. Legion was in his tent conversing with Joker who had also come. I could imagine my pilot teaching Legion some pretty dirty jokes. I summoned my combat drone.

"ASEC would like to inform you that no hostiles are present within the set perimeter." I toyed with it a bit and then deactivated it to save my omni-tool's battery. I wasn't very sleepy so I just sat there, watching the fire and thinking.

I heard movement from behind and prepared to punch the light out of the attacking creature, but it appeared to be Tali.

"You aren't the only one who wouldn't get sleep," she informed me. "It's a bit cold in the tent. Even with the suit, I mean."

She sat beside me and now two pairs of eyes were fixed to the fire. We simply were there for what seemed to be an eternity. I took out my sleeping mat and laid down. The "quarianengineer43" followed. She instinctively came closer, so much, that our clothes touched. I wrapped my arm around her.

She started talking quietly: "Shepard, I-I- I just think that it's a sm- Is it just me or it is hot in here?"

"Naah. It´s hot in here." I grinned.

She continued: "I just wanted to tell you, that I… like you. Alot more than I should. Of course I understand if you don't like me the same way, I guess."

"I actually feel the same about you. Don't be embarassed." I said. We fell asleep a while later.

_A/N: Well, how did you like it? For those who can´t understand what Glados is, play "Portal". It´s an amazing puzzle game. See you next time!_


	8. A dead spectre

_A/N: Finally some action! And the long awaited squady as well_! _I hope you don´t mind that I shortened the "Aperture Science Enrichment Center" to ASEC._

I feel like there's a stone on my stomach. Apparently quarian heads get heavier all the time. Tali is still sleeping. I notice one of the tent doors opening and a turian with a blue eye-thingy steps out. He freezes for a moment and the infamous turian smile appears on his face.

"What are you two doing?" he asks.

"Shut up." I reply. Legion decides to umm… stop playing Mass Effect and informs us that a recording will be sent to the Migrant fleet, Council, Hackett and onto the most popular video portal, "Wetube" to "test human reactions". Tali wakes up as well and moves away from me, letting me stand up.

I open my omni-tool and try to signal the Tupari Addict, but my finger misses the communications button and sends out GLADoS.

The hamster drone decides to greet everyone in a characteristic way: "Aperture Science Enrichment Center would like to inform you that failure to comply to orders will be punished, by death."

Tali instinctively backs up and trips on a log, falling over.

For a moment, she is everyone's laughing stock, but GLADoS decides to "inform" Legion as well: "ASEC would like to remind you, that android hell is indeed a real place, where you'll be sent at the first sign of defiance."

Legion replies by simply saying: "Yes. Yes. Data irrevelant." Glados is a real good character, too bad she tried to poison Chell (aka the player character) at the end of the game. After talking a bit more, we pack things up and take the shuttle to the "Tupari Addict".

I walk around the ship, checking how people are working and if there are any problems. The ship also has a gun range, where I'm headed. Garrus probably is there, practising his sniper rifle (not that he'd need it).

Garrus indeed is there and as we're most likely going to have to fight husks and scions, I decide to ask Garrus tips about holding the sniper and dealing with heavy pistol's recoil. After a bit of talking, I pull up the rifle and hold it firmly in my hand, supporting it with my leg as I'm crouching. I look through the scope of the Spectre rifle, wich is actually a modified Viper m-97. Holding my breath, I pull the trigger and fire away. Five times. Headshot, headshot, headshot, headshot, headshot. I rest for a second and continue with three more headshots. Yay! This practise in COD multiplayer is beginning to pay off! The fourth one misses the head and hits the target's neck. Garrus pulls his sniper rifle up as well and… beats me. 10 headshots in a row. He is crazy. I take my heavy pistol and open a virtual reality combat simulator.

I look up from the cover. Two vorcha. One has a flamethrower. Boom! he goes. My overload is as good as ever. A krogan appears. I aim while the krogan readys his charge and shoot his gun in the heatsink. The gun explodes, crippling the krogan, but he still rushes at me and I have to jump to the side to dodge. My helmet's HUD shows that the krogan has 10% barriers left. I shoot him three times and follow with an eyeshot. The krogan screams, but refuses to give up. He charges and grabs me by my neck. Can't breathe! Taking together my last strength I tap the incinerate shortcut button placed on my hand. It makes the beast go up in flames and release me for a second giving me the chance to shoot it a few more times. Finally, the krogan crumples to the floor.

"Impressive!" I hear Tali say. Has she watched the whole exercise? Oh no. " 'Course you could've used your drone a bit more. Anyway, I wish to talk with you, in private, preferably." I nod and head for my quarters. Garrus has a sly grin on his face.

"Yeah?" I ask sitting on my couch.

"Well… about the last time we talked."

"What about it?"

"I'm sorry. I was unprofessional and let feelings get in the way. I'm really sorry. It won't happen again."

"And if I want it to happen again?" I ask, grinning.

"I, ummm wasn't expecting that." she says nervously.

"Don't worry Tali, I wouldn't have said it if I hadn't meant it. I want you, and noone else."

She seems to get even more nervous: "I just… just… I thought that you'd say no."

"Why'd I do THAT?" I ask, smile widening even more. The talk changes into the canonic romance dialogue soon. After she has promised to "find a way to make it work", Joker announces that the collector ship is ten minutes away.

I put on a N7 breather helmet and see Garrus, Blasto, Legion and Tali appear from the elevator. Mordin comes a second later babbling about analysis and stuff. The shuttle takes us to one of the airlocks the collectors use. It opens slowly, even annoyingly so. Everything is going according to canon, until we reach the weapons stockpile. I grab the Revenant LMG (hey, even if I ain't trained on using the weapon, what stops me from taking it anyway?). Seconds later I hear horrifing screams and shouts coming from behind. Husks! How hard can a LMG be to use? Guess I'll find out. I raise it and hold the trigger. The recoil is huge, but it cuts trough organic tissue like butter. Another wave of husks comes in, but Blasto's quadruple shockwave kills 'em all and blows their legs up. A thought comes into my head: Shepard mentioned something about a reaper IFF placed into the ship. We could take it now and save the trouble that'd come with the derelict reaper.

The same moment Joker opens comms and says: "Commander, you pickin' this up? LADAR detected a strange object attached to the collector ship we did not notice before: a hoverboard." Okay. That means that we got an unknown person here.

"Watch out, squad. Unknown contact detected," I say.

We approach the platforms where Shepard originally gets ambushed. Legion and Tali hack the platforms so they'll lead us to the IFF. Plus, if we take it, the collector ship can't enter the Omega 4 relay and will get blown up upon trying to do so. Up the platform goes! We sprint to the nearest door and open it. Strangely there are some collector bodies, but they look like they were killed by husks. Husks serve collectors, right? I grab the IFF and hear screaming again.

I prepare to shoot the attacker, but Legion starts talking: "Stop. This husk is different. Husk body. Prothean mind. Possible reason: machines got switched up and prothean was impaled by dragon's teeth. Trying to communicate… sucess! Husk language spoken. Geth understand. Heretics to be thanked. Husk wants to join. Name: Tommy."

"What? Tommy? It's a prothean name?"

"Data unavailable." All right. We head back to the shuttle, fighting collectors along the way, but nothing serious happens. The shuttle seems to be under attack by collectors. LADAR detects a turian present at the shuttle, defending it. I don't know any turian that could've followed us here except… No. Can't be. I aim my sniper rifle at a collector and it's head explodes, covering everything in blood. I then take out the revenant and fire away. I'm awaken from the trance-like state by a loud beeping. Shields are low and no cover is nearby! My shields deplete completely and I throw myself to the floor, playing dead. I hear a collector coming closer. The others are most likely fighting the other insects and haven't noticed me. I thought that I'd survive for longer but… Life is like this.

Wait. Aren't I supposed to be dead? I mean yes, there's blood in front of me, but the last I remebered I did not have green blood. I survived! Yay! Who killed the collector though? I stand up and see an implanted and scarry turian in front of me. Saren!

_A/N: Yup. Saren. Shocked, eh? _


	9. Nice idea, Aria!

_A/N: I´m using Wiggs Magee´s character, Grunt-o-Saurus in the story now and he is the owner and creator of him. I have permission, people. No need to get angry! Not that any of you´d get angry, but still... Whatever. Here´s the story. _

_PS: I noticed that I switched between tenses. Sorry. Happenss when you take a long break._

Garrus opens his mouth first: "Hey Saren. Hope youre not too angry for killing you."

"I'm pretty thankful, actually. Freeing me from Sovereign's implants and everything," Saren says, "Isn't this Aria's ship?"

"It is. Normandy is an absolute dwarf next to it, both weapons and size."

"Sovereign was still bigger though," finishes Saren the conversation and decontamination finally ends. I take the elevator to my quarters and decide to take a shower, as missions like these are pretty exhausting.

Roke steps into the elevator as well: "Nice husk you got there. I like him. We're quite similar actually. He claws with his claws and I knife with my knife. See ya, mate." He says and steps out of the elevator.

I take off my armor and clothes under it and have a shower. Good thing that hot water isn't very scarce on spaceships, otherwise we'd have to replenish it daily. I wrap a towel around my waist and exit the small room. Feeding the hamster's food bowl, I notice a reflection of a purple helmet.

"Hey Tali!" I greet her. "You came to talk?" She walks to the sofa and sits down, waving for me to follow.

"I can't tell you how much what you said means to me. But I understand if you need to find something…" she lowers her head, "Someone, else. Not that I'm complaining if you're still interested. Um… Are you, still, interested?"

"I definitely am." I can't say any more as a certain quarian engineer jumps and leaps onto me sending me rolling to the floor.

"Ow!" I complain. She then proceeds to the huge bed behind us and I follow. After a bit of fighting over who gets to use whose shoulder as a pillow (guess who won, hint: someone eating paste from tubes all the time). We both fall asleep a WHILE later.

Hmmm. For some reason I feel someone laying diagonally on top of me. That's gonna hurt soon. I glance at my omni-tool and see that we've been at the captains quarters for eight hours. A plan starts to form in my mind. Sometimes the best ideas come at totally random times. I message Mordin, asking him to research Levo-Dextro combining and making us both able to eat each other's food. Sounds nice. She starts to wake.  
I greet her and she does the same, although in an unusual way. Maybe not unusual for quarians, pouncing onto people as a greeting I mean.

Joker opens the comms and tells some news: "Commander, you should head to WeTube. They have that video Legion posted there and it currently has about 20 billion views. Oh yes, and Batari games has announced a new game, "We hate commander Shepard and quarians as much". Batari games was a small company consisting of Batarians that made games about hating someone. Their other hit series was "Green Alert 3.1". It was supposed to be cool, but I avoided their games because of every game containing at least 50 ways to kill famous people VERY gruesomely and bloodily, not even speaking of the ability to saw heads off with a hacksaw.

I was interrupted from my thoughts by Tali, showing the clip of us laying next to a bonfire. Damn Legion, I sometimes wish that android hell really existed. He does classify as an android, right?

Suddenly the door opened and Blasto stood there, alongside The Great Wind.

"This one wishes to tell you that Niftu Cal tried to steal this one's shotgun number 634." What the-? He has so may shotguns?

Niftu fought back: "I did no such ssssshhh thing. I just sssshhhh tried to practise biotic sssshhh shooting like the jellyfish ssssshhhh does it. I don't have enough guns sssshhhh. I need more guns sssshhhh." I calm 'em both down and ask Joker to set course to the Omega 4 relay. (It may come quickly unlike the game, but we have no need to play through the derelict reaper. That doesn't mean that there won't be a big plot twist). I feel kinda sleepy and stay in the bed as the relay's twelve hours away. We talk with Tali for a bit until she goes to eat and work in engineering. Wait a minute! It'll soon be the famous Night Before the Final Mission. According to canon, it's gonna get steamy soon. I check my private terminal and surf on the extranet searching for "Commander Shepard and an unknown quarian at a bonfire" video comments. See if I'm a hated person or not.

Joker once again interrupts: "Hey, commander, we MIGHT want to stop at this colony, as we need supplies if we're going through the relay."

"All right," I reply.

I take Tommy, Roke and Mordin onto the shuttle and a short while later, we arrive. Roke decides to go to the bar to get a drink and hear local stories and as it doesn't feel like a very safe place, the rest of us follow. The bar is dark and creepy, and the weird merc humans don't make it any better. There are a few shouts to be heard in the corner where a big sparring ring is located. I walk to it and look at the battle. A young, pink krogan with dark grey marks is currently beating up batarians, salarians, turians and asari all at the same time.

At the moment he is slamming an asari matriarch against a wall shouting: "I. am. Grunt-o-Saurus! I'm a super-hero. I can beat up asari commandos without moving my hands. Who's next? Nobody can beat Grunt-o-Saurus!"

I see Roke climbing the railing, propably trying to beat the young one, but instead of attacking they greet each other and while they're at it I learn about Roke-o-Saurus as well. Two krogan superheroes. Looks like someone has watched to much Super-man. Or ultra-sautrus in that case.

Grunt suddenly opens his huge mouth and says: "Party over, people. Super-krogan has another colony to save." I see Roke telling him something and a while later they both walk over to us. Grunt tells me that as Roke is his battlemaster and mentor, he'll join my squad. All right… We head to the shops and I go to the dextro-amino section. No clue (yeah, right) why Tali wanted some herbal supplements and antibiotics. The clerk seems surprised at my order at first, but calms and let's me pay.

I hear her muttering: "Damn quarian lover." as I leave.

Grunt-o-Saurus is helping the local colonists by beating up every turian or salarian he sees. On the way back to the ship we see a clothing store that sells capes. What's a super-krogan without a cape? That's right, nothing. Or this is what Roke and Grunt seem to think. They enter the shop and shouting starts.

Ten minutes later masked and caped heroes exit the shop.

"Quick, to the shuttle! We've got some bloody idiots on our tail!" Grunt-O-Saurus shouts and we all start running, an angry mob on our tail. They don't like superheroes, I guess. The colony is real angry and start shooting our shuttle with AA guns. What? Two krogan can't be the reason!

A second later our comms are breached by an unknown person and I hear Aria's voice: "Hahaha! I'll get my ship back and all of you will be tortured! Plus, your little quarian friend will get an unforgettable experience! You are dead, Shepard!"

I don't care about her insults and, being the calm person I am, tell her to shut up or have Omega blown to pieces by my fellow geth.

"Wait. You're bluffing, right?"

"Correct, you idiot." I reply and enter the airlock. I ask Joker to skip decontamination and ready our GARDIANS and Aria's own oversized mass accelerator cannon, activated by the Alliance.

Joker agrees and shouts: "Take that you sons of b******s!" The cannon blasts three of Aria's fighters that were hidden on the planet to pieces.

"Get us out of here!" I shout as three frigates enter combat range. They seem to be smaller, but better armed and faster than us. We start accelerating to FTL, but one frigate manages to catch up and send a boarding vessel towards our ship.

It connects with our cargo hold and blasts a huge hole through the wall. Three vorcha, an asari, a turian and a huge krogan step out.

I take the disturbingly slow elevator and Garrus, Tali and Grunt-o-Saurus join me on the third deck as the lift passes it. Grunt takes a Claymore shotgun from his back and jumps, awaiting a fun little fight. I ready my Revenant and Tali takes her Eviscerator. Garrus seems very calm and takes out his Vindicator as the elevator slows down.

Oh my. The enemy has flamethrowers and LMG's aimed at the elevator, ready to blast everyone foolish enough to come down. We are the foolish ones, it seems. I put on a tactical cloak I got from Garrus who follows suit.

Tali sends Chiktikka to the battlefield and my GLADoS does the same. I hear her "informing" the enemy that "Aperture Science Enrichment Center would like to remind you, that the Aperture Science handheld portal device remains operational up to 3000 degrees. Organic bodies, as many test have shown, don't." A second later screams start coming from the lower deck and it sounds the flamethrower-vorcha has exploded. The elevator arrives and the very moment the doors open Grunt storms out and shoots the turian's face in.

Tali uses damping on the asari commando and she becomes virtually useless, letting Garrus score a perfect burst headshot with his Vindicator. A vorcha attempts to flank us, but as I'm still hidden under the cloak, he can't see me and I punch him in the face. The shooting stops. Wait, what about the krogan? I feel somebody next to me and then the krogan's fist hitting me in the stomach wich sends me flying and a second later bullets pierce my shields making me almost pass out from pain. Why won't anyone help me? Why must I be so close to death two times in a row? Or should I say, dead? The krogan thumps to me and gets ready to shoot me until I die.

Can't play dead this time, I guess? I hear a shotgun blast and instinctively close my eyes.

Wait, shotgun blast? Wasn't the krogan armed with a assault rifle?

I realize what's going on as I hear Tali screaming: "Take. That. You. Big. Bosh'tet!"

She shoots her shotgun with every word and during the last word she unleashes a carnage attack, killing the krogan. She then runs to me and applies medi-gel, but it doesn't cure me of the internal injuries caused by the krogan's punch.

"We need to find a hospital, quick." I gasp. She starts thinking loudly: "Omega-no. Migrant fleet-no, I'm exiled for punching Daro'Xen in the face. Geth! Hang on Shepard, we're on our way to Rannoch!

_A/N: WOW! My hand hurts from writing nonstop for two hours, but I kind of had an inspiration boost and I just couldn´t let it pass without writing._


	10. Internal Organs

_A/N: If any Estonians are reading this, put it trough google translate. MWAHAHAHA! Really funny!_

"Still alive! Even though you killed me. And tore me to pieces. And threw every piece into a fire. As they burned it hurt me because I'm being so happy for you…" That song kinda fits. Wait! I'm still alive! Even though a krogan shot me. No. Really. I am alive. So, Tali is exiled for punching Daro'Xen. What am I thinking about? Just open your eyes and look whether you're alive or not. Who am I even talking to? Myself? Am I mad? Shut up Cecare!

I open my eyes and close them again as I need to accustom to the bright light aimed straight at me. I feel weird. Looking down I see AAAAAHHH! Where'd my middle finger go? Not that I needed it anyway but… I stand up from the thing I was laying on and thankfully, there's a mirror on a nearby wall. My face looks weird. Really weird. I seem to have grown turian ears in the meanwhile. Thankfully not their teeth. I look at myself to see wether I have changed any more and well… I have. Quarian eyes. Or so I think at least. What the? I wasn't injured THAT much! I mean, yeah, punched in the stomach by a krogan but it can't be that bad. Wait a minute! Tali mentioned internal injuries. Now I get it! They, whoever they might be, geth propably replaced my organs and now I'm a third human, a third turian and a third quarian. Am I a dextro or levo now?

I can't think much longer as Garrus, Mordin and Tali both barge in and start apologising about whar they did.

"We had to do it. You would've died without it. And we ummmm… replaced most of your internal organs by cloned ones from ours. And there have been side effects. During the three weeks you were out, you've grown some quarian and turian features."

Thanks Tali, I noticed. All right. Glad I survived, but I really hope I won't lose my hair as well as every species other than humans have no hair, although the quarians MAY have it. Wait a minute! I'm part female now! Now that's strange.

"Hello?" I hear Garrus asking and curse myself for not paying attention to what's going on. "So, we were talking about the omega 4 relay. I mean, we can't just march there as Aria wants to blast us the moment we arrive," Tali says. It's really weird with those turian ears. They may look Like two pancakes, true, but they have really good hearing. About the eyes… it feels like I need some sunglasses or a mask, because everything seems too bright. I walk into a dark corner of the room and understand why the eyes were so bright: I can see in the dark now! Yay!

I listen to what's been going on, nothing too big, and after what seems like many hours finally walk out of the room. The structure I'm in has no windows and is therefore a geth facility/structure.

"Geth do not use windows. It is a structural weakness." Legion once said. It was at the heretic base, if I remember correctly. Heretics! What are we going to do to them? And what about Aria?

I board the ship and walk to the galaxy map that is as big as Normandy Sr-2's whole CIC. Nice! I set course to omega 4 relay and ask the crew to remain alert at all times out of the FTL as Aria could attack us whenever she'd want. I suddenly remember: loyalty missions. Okay, I'll do them AFTER omega 4. I mean, in real life I just wouldn't throw myself onto the floor and die if I had issues with life outside the mission. Anyway, I take the elevator and, WOW, it quickly wooshes to the captains quarters. Thanks, geth. The elevator's speed seems to be improved a lot. Joker talks to me over the intercom while on my way to my quarters; He tells me about the relay being 14 hours ETA. Nice. Night before the end. So, who'll come up to visit me? Almost all of my squad is out of the question as they're all male, so only two options: either GLADoS who is already here or Tali. Well… alright. Not too bad, I guess. What am I talking about? What do I mean, I guess? Good definitely! I activate my private terminal and start playing Mass Effect 2, where my Shepard is battling the human reaper.

My new ears inform me of someone behind me: "So… I've brought some music, but I only knew what I'd like so I only took it."

Tali, the mysterious person behind me says and inserts a copy of Flux's music and it starts playing. I put Mass Effect 2 on a pause and stand up, then walk towards the bed. She grabs my arms and "starts babbling like an idiot" explaining it with being a stupid defense mechanism. I don't do what John Shepard does, saying his idiotic "It's okay, come here," but instead just say that I want it and she doesn't have to worry so much. She then sits on the bed and let's me remove her visor. WOW, she's pretty. Not that I have time to look at her as she does the "quarian pounce" and once again I find myself under a quarian.

_A/N: You guys REALLY think I´m going to finish the ME2 portion of the story already? Of course not, a VERY big unexpected plot twist is upcoming. Be warned!_


	11. The Vanguard of My Destiny

_A/N: I know, a really short one, but I need to get this out of the way before I start loyalty missions. One more thing: I´m going to use a new line whenever someone new speaks as it may disturb some people to have a wall-o-text. The earlier chapters are also going to be edited._

"Joker to the commander. Omega 4 relay ETA one hour." I blink my eyes multiple times to accustom to the light. What's up with the weight on me for the last 3 mornings? Okay, I was out for three weeks, but for me it's three days we've been together. Last night was pretty intense, considering that Tali got out of her suit. I don't think we'll have hybrid kids running around soon, but you never know. My body is aching from multiple places from being a victim to the infamous "quarian pounce". She also starts to wake and what do quarians to as a greeting? You guessed it, they pounce. It seems pretty difficult to do from ontop of the victim, but she has practised now for quite a while. She now unleashes a "kiss greeting extreme". We spend some time and I get up finally. ETA 15 minutes. I dress up and enter the elevator, Tali doing the same.

Almost everyone is in the CIC of the "Addict". The people working there are stationed on mutiple floors making the room look more like a theatre. I head to Joker and open the window panel. The red relay towers in front of us. Guess this is it.

"10,9,8,7…" the countdown begins, "3,2,1, acceleration!" The ship violently lunges forward and hopefully the IFF will work. Good thing that activatin it did not make the collectors assault us. The corridor between the mass relays is really beautyful. Colors swirl around and the ship shakes a bit. All out of a sudden we stop.

"Taxi ride over, the total comes to 20 credit's," Joker sarcastically says.

"Not the time to make jokes," Garrus replies. The graveyard of spaceships lays in front of us, spanning most of the galactic core's proximity. The "Tupari Addict" accelerates and slowly starts manouvering between the broken ships.

"Shouldn't we get attacked or something?" Tali asks. I nod and hear someone coming behind us a second later.

"This base must be… eliminated." Saren decided to join us on the ground team, I guess.

We slowly drift through the boneyard, but strangely meet no resistance. Where are the collectors? As we reach the edge of the graveyard, we realize: in this variation of ME, the collector base is somewhere else. That means that we're totally at the start with our search.

My comms are suddenly breached and a deep, machinistic voice begins to speak: "Give up to your destroyers. We are the inevitable end. Give up and you will be let to live a few minutes longer."

Saren gets real angry at that: "You damn liars, go f**k yourself. I tried it once, wasn't pretty. Go to hell with your plan, bastards." The reaper then starts glowing red and seems to ready it's main gun, but Joker catches wind of it and makes the ship nimbly dodge.

"Mass accelerator cannon, charge!" I order. Time to see if our giant MAC works. It certainly does as the reaper gets a hole in it's lower body.

"You will be ordered to kill everyone you love," the reaper tries to scare me.

"Fire in the hole!" I scream and the crewmates act exactly as I said: They shoot our nuke into the giant hole in the reaper. It connects with the reaper's inner shell and activates it's drilling mechanisms. Standard issue anti-reaper weapons from Earth. The drill ensures that the blast reaches the reaper's core. After a few very tense seconds the realer blows.

"We will destroy you, organic scum," the machine taunts before silencing forever.

_A/N: Come on people, review! If the story is that bad you can just say it!_


	12. Saren meets the councilors

_A/N: Another short one, and a lot of Portal quotes. I´ll have longer chapters later on, as I have currently hit a block. Review, people, the button is right below the story!_

All right… Looks like we need to find the collector base. And the reapers are already here? Or is it just a single reaper? Or should I say, was?

I'm sitting in my chair and engaging in a heated conversation with the council. They want me to return to the Citadel and be their bodyguard. Hell no!

"Can't you see it? We're going to die here!" the turian councilor tries to convince me.

"Joker, cut the comms."

I hear noises behind me. It looks like Tali is having an argument with GLADoS.

"No! You can't do it! My suit will vaporize!"

"Aperture Science emancipation grid will be placed, quarian."

"I got a name, it's Tal-"

"Hey! Calm down! GLADoS, you can get me a weighted companion cube and a super-colliding-fifteen-hundred megawatt-super-heavy-duty-mega-button instead. Tali, something you wanted to talk about?"

"Yes, actually I did." Figures. "I need to go to the Citadel for some… purchases."

"All right, see what I can do." I open my omni-tool and it tells me that the Citadel is ETA 10 hours. "We're ten hours away. Want to stay here?"

"Sorry, I can't. I have some calibrations and I'm feeling a bit sick. Don't worry, nothing serious." With that she walks to the elevator, enters it and leaves. I look around for GLADoS as she is propably creating trouble already. This time I catch her from testing the enrichment center's new propulsion gel on my mixed dextro-levo food. I send her off to Joker and open my private terminal. What to do? What to do? Of course! Galaxy of Fantasy!

I make my character a "salarian sniper-biotic". After the tutorials, I get to look at the map. It's huge! I hear a beep, indicating that I have a friend invite. Hmmm… Who could be a high-level ardat-yakshi necromancer, with an achievment earned for killing a hundred quarians? Legion, 'course.  
I kill a few mechs, save human colonies from batarians and sell stuff to the merchants. Kind of reminds me of Dragon Age, although a bit more modern. I play for a few hours and then decide to get some rest.

A combat-hamster appears in front of my bed and starts talking: "Aperture science weighted companion cube is now finished. We would like to present an amusing fact: the cube is worth more than the total value of all of your internal organs. Another fact: did you know that you can donate all of your vital organs to aperture science?" Typical GLADDY.

"I'm trying to get some rest here, you know!"

"The enrichment center apologizes for the inconvenience."

We approach the Citadel again. The destiny ascension towers above us. We drift past it, towards the spectre docking.

An elevator slowly brings me, Saren and Blasto up to the tower. The council greets us and… isn't happy to see us to say the least.

"You came to defend us? Good. You can ta-"

"I'm not here to play bodyguard. I need the location of the collector homeworld, and it'd be best if you would be extremely careful from now on as there might be other vanguards, like Sovereign."

"What? You found a reaper? Where?"

"In the galactic core, on the other side of the omega 4 relay. I would advise you to ask for anti-reaper weapons from the alliance. They work pretty damn well."

"You're in no position to command me! I'm a councilor!" The turian councilor seems to get angry and starts once again questioning my theory about the "reapers, giant sentient machines, who destroy all organic life." Thankfully, the asari councilor seems to be on my side and tells the turian to shut up, although in a bit more polite way.

The salarian suddenly jumps in shock: "Run, Saren!"

"Hello, councilors, guess I have to excuse for almost killing you.  
I apologize. But now that I'm back, the reapers won't be shown mercy!"


	13. Mad guy from Earth

_A/N: Sorry for the lack of updates, been really busy lately. _

Stupid politics! We have spent our last two months on the Citadel, and the only thing that's changed is that every councilor is panicking and running around in circles. Literally.

I decide to check my extra-mail, and there's a letter I definitely want to read: "Shepard-Commander. Collector base location confirmed. Heading to you." I sent Legion to investigate the whereabouts of the base with Tommy about a month ago. Finally some results! I send a message to all my crewmates, telling them to meet up on the ship. I bump into Tali on my way to the docking bay.

"Hey!" she greets, enthusastically.

"I think you already heard it, but we're gonna get some revenge on the collectors."

"I did… still good to hear you talking. You've been unusually quiet," she notes.

"I've been thinking about my family back on Earth. What happened to them? If it's all over, I'm going to stay there, or at least visit them." I hear a loud noise from behind, and I see Legion standing there.

"Shepard-Commander. Creator Tali'Zorah," he aknowledges.

"Nice to see ya, Legion," I say and pat him on the back.

"Yes." Yes? What yes? Can't geth be more specific? "We would like to help you. It is possible. Answer required."

"Help about what?"

"Visiting relatives,"

*awkward silence*

"Ummm… I have think about it. Not so suddenly. No, not yet. We're going to kill some collectors first."

"Yes."

"What do you think? Will we succeed in killing the collectors?" Tali asks.

"I hope so. I really hope so."

***huge gap***

The corridors take us near the alleyway where "I" first met Tali. We look around, exchange memories and I get an idea. I tell her not to move and then walk out of the door. Surprise incoming!

***Tali's POV***

I wait for a while after Shepard leaves and eventually start thinking about... who else than Shepard?

I'm shaken from my thoughts by the sound of a door opening. I instinctively turn around and see a young, brown-haired human male.

"Hello, Tali'Zorah. I'm here to save you. I know all about you. And as I'm the author of this fanfic, I will make you wan't me." he says in a "seducing" tone.

"Sorry, I'm waiting for Shepard. Don't want to talk right now."

This must be one of those self-inserts Shepard told me about, I think. Crazy people from Cecare's world who think that Tali is the ultimate prize.

"Where are your attackers?" he asks.

"Ummm… Like, I was attacked two years ago. You're a bit late. "

"I know how to make you mine: I'll add a time machine plot twist!" he mutters, maniacally. I almost start running from this idiot when Shepard shows up.

The self insert is trying a different approach: "Come here, darling. Let me see what's behind your mask, o'goddess of tech."

"You got something to say to my girlfriend?" Shepard asks.

"Yeah, I'm so awesome that Tali would even ditch commander Shepard for me!"

"Get out of here, boy. She has a shotgun. You DON'T want to be on it's wrong end."

The man starts to run, but is caught by Garrus walking into the hallway. He looks around and decides to whack the guy in the face. Poor dude stumbles away, head ringing from Garrus' punch.

"You're a psycho, Garrus. You know that?"

"What about the time you shot a Piyak?"

"Don't mention it."

***back on the ship***

I rest alongside Tali on our bed, listening to the music I bought from Flux as a surprise to her. She starts rhytmically waving her head and I understand that a dance wouldn't hurt.

"May I ask the kind lady to a dance?" I say half-jokingly.

"Hey, you almost sound like that idiot in the alleyway! But I'll dance anyway, haven't done that for a few years though."


	14. Miss Goto

_A/N: Here´s another one! Probably only three to four chapters left till we kill the collectors, so, you want a sequel? If you do, just review!_

"Hi Wrex. How's it going? You all right?

Love,  
Cecare."

All right. I guess I suck at writing letters to krogan clanleaders. I click on the delete button and the message literally flies into the recycling bin. The quarian next to me begins to wake as her eyes start glowing in a pure white color.

"Hey! Nice morning to you," I greet. She just rolls over and lays there. "Can't get up, miss?"

*silence*

"Bosh'tet."

A while later I sit in the mess hall and chat with Garrus.

"Hello Shepard," Garrus greets.

"No need to get so official. I'm techically not even alliance military at all."

"Okay, Cec."

"What? If that's the case, I'll call you Gary!"

(A/N: Yeah, I know there's another fic called "Christmas on Rannoch" or something where Shepard's daughter calls him uncle Gary, but I wrote this part before the other story was published.)

We chat and joke for a bit, but are interrupted by Joker, maniacally running around with GLADoS on his tail.

"Shepard, help! Gladdy here wants to make me throw my best bud out of the airlock!"

"To proceed with the test you must, sadly, incinerate your best friend companion cube,"

"She won't leave me alone!"

I decide to interfere: "Hey, Gladdy, want to do a small assignment? I need you to bring a message to Wrex."

"Understood."

I get just a few minutes in silence (not really silence actually as the mess hall is almost never quiet) before the super-krogan, Roke comes in.

"Shepard."

"Yeah?"

"We have a… problem. The bastard that made me get exiled , I know where he is. I'd like to give him a bullet to the face."

"What happened exactly?"

"Three hundred years ago, on Tuchanka, we had a disagreement. We were gonna kill each other, but the clan leader stepped in, and being the weird guy he was, tried to solve it peacefully. The clan leader made us talk to each other until one attacked the other. The one who attacked would be exiled. My strategy was to simply stand there and say nothing, but the other guy, Gort, well… his strategy was to mimic eating me. That enraged me, of course and the next thing I knew was that he was on the floor with blood splattered everywhere. I just made a run for it. Wasn't worth fighting, I still value honor. Unlike some."

"Okay… Where is he then?"

"Illium. If you kill him yourself, I'll leave."

"Joker, set course for Illium. We can put the collectors on hold for a while."

"Aye-aye, commander. Shut up, you stupid robot! I don't want to marry it!" Apparently, Joker was having trouble with GLADoS.

Roke leaves and I decided to explore the ship as about a quarter of the ship I had not seen yet. The Addict's tail had the Alliance's anti-reaper cannons. In case of a reaper attack the cannons would slide out of the tail and be able to turn around and shoot anything around the ship. That was where I was headed.

The elevator doors open and the massive AR (anti-reaper) guns stood in front of me. I see just a few crewman there. The room strangely has a upper floor as well, where no-one works. I decide to check it out as it seems rather weird.

Strange. Nothing is up on the second floor. It's completely empty. I stand there for a few seconds and see movement out of a corner of my eye. I quickly turn towards the movement, but there's no-one there. Wait… maybe someone has a tactical cloak! I walk to the place of interest and start waving my hands around. After moving around a bit, I catch something.

"Gotcha!" I shout. A dark figure uncloaks and punches me. Never was good with hand-to-hand combat. The thief runs, but I tap the button on my omni-tool that closes all doors.

"Stop!"

"Okay, okay, you got me. You happy now?" the dark figure asks.

"Who are you and what are you doing on my ship?"

"I'm just getting a free ride, and the name's Kasumi Goto, at your service."


	15. Roke Plays a Cannibal

_A/N: Here´s another one. Hope youliked it. Merry christmas to everyone!_

"Hey, commander! What's up?" Joker asks.

"Nothing. Nothing at all. Except the thief I found in the AR cannon room, but… yeah."

"I talked to her. Managed to get your combat drone to follow her. I didn't say about where you're from to her, though."

"See ya!" I walk to the mess hall, where GLADoS and Kasumi are supposedly chatting, but the mess sergeant tells me, that they've left for Kasumi's quarters that I assigned to her.

I hear voices through the door: "I know you! You're from that game, Portal."

I step in and say: "That's right. How do you know it? The game is like, 170 years old."

"I… have a secret. But I guess I'll have to tell you. I'm not from here. I was born in the 1980s, but I was somehow teleported here in… what was it? 2007? I'm sure you don't believe me though."

"Actually… I do, because the same thing happened to me. Three years later. Shepard got killed and a geth platform visited me, asking to replace him."

"Wow! I thought I was the only one! Hey, I have a question: I did not get to play a game called "Mass Effect", but it's trailers seemed to be about this world. Is this some kind of a videogame world?"

"Looks like."

Suddenly GLADoS interrupts me: "You're not following the appropriate test protocol. By the test protocol, you should be getting ready to land on Illium."

"Ok. Want to tag along?"

"You bet!"

***bit later***

Roke is already anxiously pacing around with the Claymore heavy shotgun in his hand.

"Coming!" I shout.  
I almost enter the shuttle, but see Legion quickly moving towards me.

"Shepard-commander. Your request is fulfilled." Oh yeah! I asked Legion to get me a 50. Cal Barret from the "old-time" Earth, and here it is. Ignores kinetic barriers. Shoots throuh an APC's armor with one shot. Anything it hits, dead. Mwahahaha! Carnage will be coming, soon.

"Thanks, Legion."

"Shepard-Commander."

The ambush is set up. When Gort walks past, bam! I and Kasumi kill his bodyguards, Roke shoots the target in the head. Should be piece of cake.

"Targets. Twelve o'clock, armed with…" Kasumi pauses for a second and scans them. "M-22 Eviscerator on the target, the asari bodyguard has a M-5 Phalanx and the vorcha has a flamethrower."

"Locked and loaded. Let's do this!" Quoting Gaz, or Ghost from Call of duty. Why am I doing it?

Time to test the Barret. I activate the termal sights and the targets start glowing white.

"Rest in pieces, criminal," I mutter while aiming at the asari's nose. I pull the trigger and the round goes straight through her. The face violently explodes.

In the meanwhile, Kasumi has sneaked up on the Vorcha and overloaded his flamethrower from behind. The boom squad gets a second to be surprised at the loud bang of the 50. Cal before his inciendary device explodes and turns him into many pieces of flesh.

"Haha! Finally some action!" the enemy Krogan shouts and cocks his shotgun. "Come on, people, kill them!"

"They're dead, you know," I say.

"Some of them, yes but… Attack!"

I hear a heavy machine gun spool up behind us.

"Goodbye. Roke, you should have been smarter."

"I. Am. Krogan!" Roke screams and charges at Gort but the enemy erects a biotic barrier, protecting him from Roke. At the same time the HMG behind us opens fire. My kinetic barriers go down at a steady speed. I turn around and hop to the side, around a corner. The HMG-wielding Krogab comes closer and laughs maniacally. No way I'm gonna get punched again! When the Krogan turns, I empty six rounds of the Barret into his stomach, firing from the hip, making him fall down.

"Requiescat in pace, bast****d."

Kasumi is being overwhelmed by vorcha. Thankfully, she has a flashbang.

"Haha!" she playfully shouts and the nade goes off in the face of the Vorcha. I take potshots at them with my sniper.

"Thanks, Shep!"

Roke is shooting the barrier to no avail.

"Open up, damn thing!"

"You can't get me, boy."

"And you're a son of a-" The last word is lost as he shoots his shotgun at the same time.

"Roke. Ready? I'm gonna put one in his feet!"

"Don't kill him."

The shot rings and Gorts foot flies off.

"Ow. Ow. You'll pay. The Reapers will make you pay. Just two years left. You'll die anyway." The Reapers? Is he a sleeper cell agent for them?

Roke doesn't care because he decapitates him with a knife.

"Who's gonna eat who now?" he asks from the body and rips off the remaining foot. "Mmm. Yummy. Anybody hungry?"

_A/N: Not exactly a fluffy christmas chapter, but... Please, review and/or tell wether you want a sequel or not._


	16. Poor Collectors

_A/N: The Collector base! Only one chapter after this, so you better get reviewing. The sequel ,entitled "Mass Failure" is coming soon._

Shepard, ETA five minutes. Better get ready," greets Joker through the intercom.

"Tali, better get up, we have arrived."

"At Zakera ward?"

"Naah. Collector base."

"Just kidding."

***later***

I stand behind Joker alongside Tali, Garrus and Mordin. We watch as the huge, blue relay comes closer and closer and…

"We did it. Welcome to Eagle 5 relay."

"The Collectors are gonna pay for killing my video game character," I say.

I only see blue, whirling mass of electricity and air around us for a few minutes, but it ends as suddenly as it began. There is no debris field, because this relay is one of the "closed ones" that are closed to everyone as the council is scared of the "new Rachni". Speaking of which, I wonder if the new Turian councilor is still alive. In case he wasn't told of the Asari councilor's Ardat-Yakshi syndrome.

"Umm, commander, there are something that looks like small dropships coming towards us. Nothing our GARDIANS can't handle."

The Occulus start dropping like flies, but one of them manages to shoot a hole into the engine room.

"I'll deal with it." The four of us enter the elevator and it quickly brings us down. "Get ready. I have a baaad feeling 'bout this."

"Go for the optics, Chicktikka, go for the optics!" shouts Tali.

"Gladdy, wreak some havoc." I send out GLADoS.

"It is the Enrichment Center's pleasure."

The Occulus whooshes into the room and the battle starts.

"Mordin, can you freeze it?"

"No. No. Resistant to freeze. Reccomend incinerate instead."

"Do it then!"

The monster's armor, as my HUD informs me, is now at 60%. I activate my tactical cloak and get next to it and open fire with my Barret. The Occulus' armor is no match to huge bullets and it gets six holes into its body. Time for Gladdy to finish it off.

"You will be baked and then there will be cake." At the same time she incinerates the occulus completely. "Goodbye!"

We go back to Joker, just in time to see the Collector ship coming out.

"They're sending an old friend out to greet us, commander."

"Fire the AR cannons!"

Two shots pierce the collector ship's armor and the nukes start digging their way in.

"Detonation in: 5,4,3-" Joker doesn't get to finish as the enemy's main gun shoots us in the wing, making us spin around.

"We're going down! We have to land on the Collector base!"

I hear the Collector ship exploding in the background. For some reason, I remember Miranda's words: "We knew this was a one-way trip." Seemingly to prove her wrong, I say out loud: "We're not gonna give our lives willingly to some mutated protheans. We will defeat them. They won't stand in our way!"

The rest of the ground team has arrived behind me.

"This one can be counted on," Blasto says.

"I will swipe them over with a great wind!" Niftu shouts.

"I will help." agrees Roke.

Basically everyone agrees to fight to the end.

"Now that's what I want to hear! Blasto, you take the second squad as we'll split up. I'll have Garrus, Legion, Kasumi and Mordin. I know from the game that there are vents here. Tali, you're up. Get your gear out. We're leaving in ten."

I hop out of the Addict's door, my squad close behind.

"Good luck, everyone. Especially you, Tali."

We walk forward with no resistance for a while and Garrus pops a question: "Want to do a sniping challenge?"

"You bet."

I see a Collector drone flying towards us and aim at it, and squeeze the trigger, but my bulle hits a second later than Garrus', making him get the kill.

"Kill-stealer!"

"And you're supposed to have te best gun."

"Really, the Viper is no match for it. It may aim fast, but it sucks at delivering one-shot one kills."

I shoot a Collector assassin while saying it and the enemy falls to the endless pit below us.

The first fight follows canon pretty much, except that the teams are different. Saren and Tommy are on the other team, but according to Blasto they're killing Collectors like crazy. And I thought I got the good guys.

"Shepard-Commander. Creator Tali'Zorah in trouble."

I sprint to the button and punch it. The door opens and I see the other team.

"Tali! Hack the door, we'll cover ya!"

She begins typing away very quickly, while the others give suppressing fire. It takes about ten seconds, and then we all burst into the room. The quarian engineer is hacking again, this time to close the door and I hope that she doesn't stick her head out of the door. Unfortunately, this is exactly what she does, and a missile is coming towards her.

"Tali! Look out!" I shout, but it seems to be too late. Time seems to go in slow-motion. I see Roke jumping to the side to deflect the missile and thankfully, it works. I run to Roke and YES! He made it!

"Haha! You can't kill a Krogan with a missile. I'll just have to change my tactics a bit, because it unfortunately still hurts. Can't go shotgunning anymore." I offer him a hand and, wow, he's heavy, help him up.

"Thanks Roke," Tali says.

"Next time, don't stick your head out. Tends to kill you, you know."

"Okay, now we have to cross a long and thin walkway, surrounded by seeker swarms. Tommy, any way you could hack it?"

Legion translates my words and the Husk's as well: "Yes."

Tommy then begins hacking a mechanism and we just wait.

"How many kills, Garrus?"

"Forty-two. You?"

"Dang. Forty-one."

"Guess who's a better sniper?"

"Here. Try to fire the Barret. Let's see what you do."

He stands and takes aim.

"Bang!" he says and pulls the trigger. I should've told him about the recoil, as the Turian vigilante finds himself on the floor with the rifle on top of him.

"What the-? And I thought that the Widow was a b***h to fire."

Kasumi helps him up and at the same time, Tommy finishes hacking.

"Let's go."

Legion translates: "The way should be clear of seekers. They were commanded to another side of the base."

I nod and we all start walking quickly.

"Husks. Eleven o'clock. Low." informs Saren.

I take the Revenant and open fire.

***after the walk***

"We have been doing extraordinarily well. We have no casualties, except that Roke limps, and we must keep up the good work. There is a human reaper waiting for us. I'll take two of you with me, others will be extracted by the Tupari Addict. I'll see you. If I don't make it, make Garrus lead the team. Kasumi, Legion. You're up."

The Collector platform makes a terrifyingly screeching noise and flies forward.

"Get ready."

I open fire on the nearest Collector, and it turns into a pile of flesh seconds later.

"Shields are down!"

I take cover and watch the kinetic barriers renegerate. I activate the tactical cloak and sneak up on a possessed, Harbinger type Collector. I whack it in the head with my omni tool and it falls down. Another platform races towards us and "parks" to let it's crew board us.

Scions. I hate scions. Nothing the 50. Cal can't take care of, though. After three shots it drops, and my teammates have killed the other.

After a bit more of fighting the Human Reaper finally shows up.

"I know what's going to happen. We have to shoot the tubes that will appear. I'll take the one's on the left. Kasumi- middle. Legion - on the right."

The tube covers go down and we open fire. Every one of us has two of them, and they all get destroyed before any collectors show up.

The Reaper falls down and I rush to the console nearby, setting a nuke there. Now we need to get out of here before the Reaper wakes.

"Run!" We sprint away from there, but there is a hole there. Oh no. We have to wait till the "little guy" makes the platforms fall. Thankfully, I have the Alliances prototype nuclear round. Mwahaha! I load it into the rifle and when the Reaper appears, shoot it into it's eye. The explosion is huge and tears the platforms we're standing on down.

I open my eyes and push away the debris from on top of me. I also help the others and start running, bullets flying around us.

"We have to jump for it!" I take potshots at the Collectors while Kasumi and Legion jump. All out of a sudden Joker appears and starts shooting a M-8 Avenger. Tali also comes out of the doorway and I decide to take the chance and jump.

Left. Right. Left. Right. Jump! I narrowly catch the side of the ship and a three-fingered hand helps me up.

"Let's go! Joker! Now!"

"Aye-aye, commander."

The Tupari Addict accelerates and flys away from the Collector base, narrowly avoiding the nuclear blast.

"People, we did it. Who wants a vacation?"

_A/N: It´s uncertain, but I MAY do a collaborative fic between me, randompeoples and dsarp. Don´t forget to review!_


	17. Earth

_A/N: A real short epilogue! Not much point, just sets the stagee for Mass Failure._

Legion stood in the middle of the mess hall, with my whole ground team surrounding him.

"Legion, do it!"

"Time and dimensional travel: activated."

There was a flash of blinding light and we suddenly found ourselves on a snowy street. Earth. 2010. Christmas. Just in time.

I recognized the place as Kännu street and told the crew to take a left, heading to Võrse street. My three-story house was already in my sights. We turned the corner, Legion in front, and walked through the gate. This time, Legion stayed behind, and I heard a car coming down the street. That crazy neighbour with his muscle-cars! I looked behind me just in time to see Legion get hit and decapitated by the car.

"Legion!" I shouted, but the Geth infiltrator exploded.

Dang it. We were stuck on Earth. And in two years, the Reapers will kill everyone in the ME universe. It was a failure. A total failure.

_A/N: Review! Last chance! _

_If you´re interested, we may be starting a collaborative fic with dsarp. Stay tuned!  
_


	18. Shuttle Jokes

_A/N: Sorry for the delay, I kind of hit a block, and then wrote my other stories. I don´t exactly like this chapter myself, because the ending feels a bit cheesy, but it´ll have to do. You may have already read it, because I deleted the sequel. I will continue writing here._

Joker is banging his head against a wall.

"You sure that's safe?" I ask.

"No. But were stuck. And it's 2186 already in the, how do you call it, "Mass Effect" universe." he says.

"Don't worry, I'm sure they'll send Legion's backup copy or something to us!" I try to help him.

A voice from downstairs interrupts out conversation: "Come to breakfast!"

We both go downstairs and sit down at the table, which is already full of various aliens. My crew.

"Hey Shep!" Kasumi greets. I sit down onto my chair and start eating.

I can't help but hear Garrus talking to Kasumi: "You know me. I always like to-" I for a second lose the conversation, because Blasto starts conversing with Niftu, "Before popping the heat sink," he finishes. Guess there's something between them…

After finishing eating I flick out my iPod, which thankfully was still in my drawer, even after I disappeared. The mail icon has a red "1" above it, indicating a new e-mail, which I immediately decide to read:

Mr. Shepard. We know of your problem, and have decided to help you. We have inter-dimensional traveling devices, but they are usable only once, meaning that you can't come back here. The devices will be airdropped to your house. Best of luck defeating the Reapers,

The Bioware company.

All right! Yay! Back to save the galaxy! I enter my room, which I share with Joker and Tali, and find the latter sitting on my bed and fiddling with her omni-tool.

"I may have found a way to get back to the "Mass Effect" universe. The makers of the game are going to send us dimensional travel devices, but we can't return using them," I inform her.

"That's fine by me," she says.

"Go and tell the others, okay? I'll say my parents goodbye."

***Thirty minutes later***

"It's time to make the Reapers pay. Were going to be back in the "Mass Effect" universe, and listen carefully: They. Won't. Defeat us! We will stand strong, and they will be the ones to cover in fear. If you don't want, you won't have to come. But I'm going to make them extinct."

Seconds after the speech, everyone is next to, or behind me.

"We're ready, commander." Garrus says.

About a dozen red packages lands on our lawn, and every one of us grabs one. There is a timer on each on them, and they start ticking: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… a blinding flash of red light is seen, and seconds after, I find myself on the floor of the "Tupari Addict's" mess hall.

***Next Morning***

I felt the Quarian engineer snuggle up against me. As we had about four hours left, I just laid there silently. Why can't those moments last forever?

GLADoS suddenly appeared out of thin air. "Do you want to marry that thing since you love it so much?"

"What the-? GLADDY, get out!"

"Well I won't let you!"

Tali had a confused look on her face.

"Go bother Kasumi or Garrus or someone. I'm kind of busy. Now where were we?"

***4 hours later***

Me, Garrus, Tali and Kasumi sat in the Paragade. A conversation started between the Thief and the Renegade.

"Gary, about that conversation we had earlier. How did the match end?" Kasumi asked.

"We fought nine rounds. It was… brutal. The judge called it a draw. We ended up holding a tiebreaker in her quarters. I had reach and she had flexibility."

"Maybe we could do that sometime."

"Really? I didn't know you were into sparring," Garrus says disbelievingly.

"Maybe we could skip the fighting part."

"Really? I mean I like you, yes, but that's kind of sudden."

I interjected: "Whatever happens, Kasumi, DON'T INGEST."

The thief blushed like crazy, Garrus face palmed, and Tali played scared.

"You didn't seem to follow that rule last night," she joked, "You might get an allergy or something."

Now it was my time blush.

"Yeah, the Quarian is smart. You look rather red. You sure you don't want to go see a doctor?" Garrus laughed. Thankfully, we arrived at the Presidium before I could figure out an answer, and I hurriedly exited the shuttle.

***At the Citadel Tower***

"Hey, councilors, long time no see. Wassup, foo'?"

"Your manners are inappropriate. Being a Spectre doesn't give you the right to practice human "street talk" with us. Now was there something you wanted to ask?" the Asari councilor asked.

I noticed the Turian's absence and decided to question the Asari: "Where did your Turian buddy go? I mean, you've lost two of them in the past five months."

The Salarian answered: "The new councilor didn't know about the Asari councilor's Ardat-Yakshi syndrome either. He died a painful death and is mourned."

I bursted out laughing. "I find nothing funny here," the Asari said.

"We have destroyed the Collectors, but we won't take on the Reapers alone. I ask you to build a fleet, find a new Turian councilor, and tell him about your syndrome BEFORE mating."

With that I walked away, smiling evilly, and took the elevator to the shuttle bay.

"Joker, start the engines, we need to get to Illium. Liara might have some help for us."

***Illium, Nos Astra, no fun shuttle conversations this time***

"Hey Liara! How are you doing?" I ask the Asari, "Other than threatening people, I mean."

"Fine, I guess." She then stepped closer and caught me in an embrace.

That's unexpected. Didn't I break up with her before Ilos or something? Whoops. The infamous glitch, that makes it impossible to break up with your ME1 LI.

"Sorry Liara, but… I mean that… I found someone else."

"I know. We can still be friends though."

What? Are you kidding me? That's her reaction? I expected more.

"I hope you two are happy together. But promise me you will never, ever leave Tali."

"I won't. I won't."

_A/N: I have a beta! There was one review about he needing a context. I replied to it, but no answer. Anybody knows what he was talking about?_


	19. Tali vs Necromorphs

_A/N: Sorry for the break, been busy with the New Assassin and then I didn´t have the mood to write it... Sorry Talimancers, don´t be angry, I dont hate Tali._

*another month later, Citadel*

Yay! I got the ring. Now all that's left is the proposal. I activate my omni-tool and voicemail Tali: "Meet me at Wan-Obi's Restaurant, in 30 minutes." Hehe. That's done. I whistle. Or at least try to, as I can't whistle.

I have to keep myself from skipping. That's not something a famous commander should do. I mean, she hasn't accepted yet or anything, but I'm pretty sure she will. It can't be any other way.

Twenty minutes later I'm at Wan Obi's. Wonder if someone named it intentionally? The front door automatically slides open in front of me and reveals Tali already nervously waiting at one of the booths. Wait a minute… you gotta be kidding… this is the Mos Eisley cantina music! Intentionally named, that's for sure. I walk up to Tali and sit down.

"Hey!" I greet.

"Nice to see you! I hope it's not offensive in human culture for the one asked out to show up earlier," Tali gets nervous.

"Don't worry. It isn't," I reassure her, "The waiter is coming. The meal's on me."

Suprisingly pancakes are still popular, so I order them. Tali has something with a REALLY weird name and what according to the menu picture looks like some kind of meat in jelly.

"So, what have you been doing during the day?" she strikes up a conversation.

"Me? Nah. Not much. Shopping for supplies and similar. Though I noticed something you might like…"

"Oh really? You're not gonna tell me, are you?"

"Nope. Not yet, at least."

My omni-tool rings and I prepare to hit the "silence" button, but stop as the caller's Blasto.

"Could you make it quick? I'm in the middle of having a dinner with a nice-looking quarian." That earns me a look from the engineer.

"This one wishes no harm. This one wants to provide information: there is a crowd of reporters forming outside. This one wishes you a nice dinner."

Well… That certainly grew my confidence!

"There are news people searching for us. But I don't care, so here's the question: Tali'Zorah vas Normandy nar Rayya, will you join me in heart and soul, and continue the journey among the stars beside me?" I hope that came out right. Damn it, I should've read the text again. What if my translator is broken?

"Of course I will!" Tali excitedly answers.

"If it were a human marriage, I'd kiss you, but with that suit… Tali look out!" I shout in panick.

There is a huge monster with Turian features right behind her. And, as monsters usually do, he grabs her and sprints away at an astonishing speed with a wailing quarian.

"Tali! I'll come and save you!" I start running after him, but I'm slower and after two minutes of chasing, I collapse.

"Bastards! I'll kill you! Come out and fight me!" I shout out weakly.

As asked, I feel a hand on my shoulder.

"Mister, are you okay?" a voice asks. I turn around as quickly as I can and see a man in metal armor with a weird helmet. Hey, I remember you…

"Are you Clarke? Isaac Clarke, engineer?"

"How do you know me? The red marker got me here. What's this place? I know this isn't the Sprawl nor the Ishimura…"

"It's the Citadel. Are the necromorphs here?"

"As far as I can tell, yes. The one that took your girlfriend was a Brute. But he's not made from a human body."

S**t! They've got Tali. And most likely, they are going to take over the Citadel in a few weeks. But how did the necros get here? The Reapers? Most likely. And then realisation hits me: Tali is dead.

_A/N: I just LOVE crossovers. Welcome, Dead Space. Anybody who likes survival horror or third person shooters should play it. Awesome game. As another note, should Tali come back? Answer the poll on my profile.  
_


	20. L3g1on zn1p3s p3rf3ctl1

_A/N: You thought I only wrote short chapters nowadays? Wrong. Though the next one will be. A short one._

„Mister, we'll get her back. But there's a whole army of Necromorphs on their way here. And if you're not in a hurry to get killed, I suggest we get outta here," Isaac tries to get me moving. Tali is dead. Why? Why did those bastards have to take her?

„Why?" I scream out.

I see movement from the corner of my eye and instinctively turn to look at it. A slasher, usual infected whose hands have grown biological blades and mutated limbs near the waist.

„F***!" I hear the engineer shout out, "Die you Necromorph piece of-" He is muted by the sound of a plasma cutter going off. The slasher loses it's left hand, but nonetheless keeps charging towards us. I raise my pistol to fire at it, but my bullets just seem to anger it more. Isaac shoots it in the neck twice, and to my surprise it just keeps tumbling forward, now headless. As it's now blind the monster starts wildly slashing away. I pull out my sticky grenade and throw it near the Necro. It blows with a loud boom, sending gore flying all over the place. The damn thing is now feetless, but… it continues pulling itself forward using its right hand, the only limb left! Isaac walks up to it and kicks it. The monster unleashes a final, panickal flail and stops, lifeless.

„Finally," I comment.

„Here, take this line gun." The engineer hands me a weapon from his back. Now that´s a fine weapon…

„You know how to use it?" he asks me.

„I think so," I answer. That´s the truth. The game doesn´t exactly show where Isaac puts his finger to shoot, but it can´t be too hard, right? I find the trigger and fire off a practice shot, towards a wall. The recoil, fortunately, isn´t too high, so yes, I can manage this gun.

„Are you ready to go now? We ain´t going to get your buddy back by just standing here. I´m not implying that we will, but it´s best not to lose hope…"

„I know. But why her?"

A silence descends on us as we walk down a hallway. Wait… isn´t that the same one I- I mean Shepard saved Tali at? Yup, those crates are positioned the same, the place has the same, creepy red lightning and there´s a Chora´s Den´s sign back there. Wonder where the Necros went? In Dead Space 2 you couldn´t go for two minutes without encountering one. Where are they now? Isaac decides it´s time to try if stomping crates works here too, and judging by the sounds (a metal boot smashing against some kind of plastic and an unbeareable amount of curse words), it didn´t go too well. Too bad. I display my omni-tool and stylishly collect the credits from the crate with the tap of a button.

„You can collect money with it. But look at this," waves Isaac me over and opens up his Riglink display. I´d like one of those suits for myself… A huge holographic display pops up in front of him and he browses to an earlier video log from the Sprawl. Seeing someone kill Necromorphs with such ease in real life is a bit… daunting. The video ends soon and another starts. A message from Nicole… Isaac shuts it a few seconds after it starts and shuts the holographic projection.

„Let´s go. There´s no time to waste."

„I agree on that one," I agree (duh, obvius) and the both of us start pacing towards the dock. Hope the _Tupari Addict _is still okay. Wait, I gotta contact them. I fire up the _call_ function and from there select Joker from the list.

„Hey, commander. Thanks god you´re ok."

„Nice to see you too. How´s the situation?"

„Pretty fine. We got Grunt (I can hear someone screaming: „Here. Comes. Grunt-o-Saurus!" followed by a large bang) and Roke covering the front airlocks and Saren and Tommy in the back."

„One tip, if you see the monsters, don´t shoot for their head or something. Aim for the hands and if it´s still alive, go for the head. It´s practically helpless after that. Dismemberment is the key."

„Wait, who´s that blue-suited guy behind you?"

„Don´t tell me you didn´t play Dead Space last night."

„Wait, Isaac Clarke? But where´s Tali?"

„She´s dead," I sadly say.

„What? No, that can´t be possible… This has to be some kind of a joke…" Joker weakly says, completely out of person.

„It isn´t. And you´re the Joker, by the way," I try to joke.

„Shep- -s fast a- -copy?" Damn it, the comms are starting to fail.

„Hang on, I´m coming! Joker? Joker!"

I take a faster pace and almost run, the engineer following close behind.

There are a few Necromorphs here and there, but nothing a few line gun blasts and plasma cutters can´t take care of. Until we reach the docking bay. The sight of the _Tupari Addict_ is magnificent, but disturbed by the huge amount of Necros in the hangar. They are viciously clawing the outer walls of the ship, but fortunately, to no avail. At least yet. It only takes a single Crawler to spot me and they´re on to us. Where´d the Pack come from? I fold out the line gun and fire away at the creepy, small child Necromorphs. If even one of them latches on to me… it´s game over. Or life over, I should say. My weapon slices to many of them with a single shot and a few die on the spot from decapitation, but the Slasher variety of zombies just keeps coming. I risk a peek behind me and discover another epic horde running towards us. It´s gonna get ugly…

I´m starting to feel a certain numbness in my trigger finger. Ten minutes later and those bastards are still coming. And the _Addict´s_ crew isn´t coming out to save us. Even if they tried, they wouldn´t reach us. Now only a miracle can help us. A miracle that´d fall out of the sky. But, it never has and never will happen. I won´t most certainly get myself a contact beam falling from above. I´d be lucky if I got hit in the head by someone´s sawn limb.

Aw sh*t… You gotta be kidding me… A dark figure literally falls from the sky next to the two of us. It stand´s up in an oddly robotic way and says something strangely familiar, those two fantastic words. No, „I love you" is three words.

„Shepard-commander."

„Legion? How'd you get here? Last I knew you were on Earth, in the past and under a car!"

„This platform is not Legion, like Shepard-commander calls it. It is instead the backup of the platform designated Legion. We are to be called, in honor of Legion's gamertag, L3g1on zn1p3s p3rf3ctl1."

„Really?" I blast away the last shot, then reload once again.

„Yes. We advise all organics to get out of the detonation range. Dropping anti-organic bomb in ten seconds."

I look up to see a giant Geth dropship towering above us. That's how Leg- sorry, L3g1on got here, obviusly.

„Come on, Isaac! The Geth are going to make a pancake out of this „organic horde" if we don´t get out of here quick."

„I always wondered why I bothered to carry the flamethrower around," throws Isaac an one-liner.

Speaking of which, it burns down the undead horde quickly, leaving us a corridor to attempt to run through.

Time seems to pass in slow-motion as we run past hundreds of fleshy, bloodily red hands attempting to slice us to pieces. The port airlock approaches rapidly. Aw sh*t, I hope that the one in charge of the defense here looks before shooting. That would be embarassing, to die here, almost escaped. The airlock opens, revealing Garrus with a Revenant M-76. His eyes widen for a second, but he sidesteps and shoots past us. We hop in and the doors close once again.

„Hey, old buddy. Let´s get out of here!" Garrus greets warmly. As warmly as a reptilian can, of course.

I frantically tap the call button and get Joker on the comms.

„Joker, we´re aboard. Start the engines, but don´t fly ye-"

A huge explosion rocks the ship. Guess L3g1on's anti-organic bomb really worked.

The airlock opens once again, to reveal the Geth standing alone in the midst of the horde. No, not the undead horde. The re-dead horde. He casually walks in and the _Addict´s_ engines finish charging. Off we go! We start raising quicker and quicker, until we´re in the air and preparing for FTL. I look out of a single illuminator on the wall and aw sh*t. That´s not possible.

The Reapers.

They're here.

All of ´em.

We´re still doomed.

_A/N: Sorry everyone, I wrote it on the computer and I kind of messed up the upper comma thingy. And I got your point. You want Tali back. Be it so. Next question: romance again (though not as fast, the progression was CRAZILY quick before) or not. Your choice. The poll is right there on my profile. Thank you all for the great amount of positive feedback received. I´ll let you go vote now._


	21. NOTICE!

A/N: So, I'm finally paying attention to this story again. The thing is though that I've reread it, and now think it sucks. BUT i still have a bunch of ideas. So, should I continue? Should I not?

PS: If anyone is interested, I've started writing a new ME fic and right now i think its a lot better written and has a more believeable storry than this one. Check it out if you feel like it.

So, should I continue?


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